Vans a Sight to Behold
Around noontime yesterday, two unique personality-driven vehicles motored west on Delancey before turning right onto Allen Street. Both vans were truly a sight to behold, with motorists and pedestrians alike staring in awe. One was sheathed in a crazy assortment of colorful cameras (dubbed the “Camera Van”); the other had metallic ornamentation welded to it, and was towing a music-themed punchbuggy (dubbed “Musicar”) studded with guitars, turntables, keyboards, and other random instruments.
UPDATE: Art Cars are in town for a documentary screening at Anthology. Many more were parked outside on East Second Street.
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The “Camera Van” is the work of artist and filmmaker Harrod Blank, and is just one of many so-called Art Cars. Here is the history as told on his website:
One night In the fall of 1993, Harrod Blank had a dream in which he covered his car with cameras and then drove around and took pictures of people on the streets. The public, unaware that the cameras worked, reacted naturally. At the end of the dream, Harrod looked at pictures taken with the van of faces frozen in the moment of awe, pictures so powerful that the next morning he decided to attempt to build such a vehicle in reality.
With the help of Dan Lohaus and some other friends, Harrod spent the next two years designing and building the van. With a lot of trial & error, the van was completed in 1995 and made it’s debut voyage in April leaving his home in Berkeley California, stoping in Houston and New Orleans and ending up in New York City where he would live and take pictures with the van for the following six months.
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More Art Cars can be seen here.
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